


An Echo, A Stain

by ThereminVox



Series: Memento Mori [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 16:43:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20567573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereminVox/pseuds/ThereminVox
Summary: [Excerpt from Xander Wilde’s journal: a page, ripped and fraying at the edges…]





	An Echo, A Stain

* * *

_“Delirious, I awake; cloaked by frigid haze. _

_Save for fulgurating hues in one secluded corner, the room and its stifling canvas is painted by smeared shadow. _

_  
Tapping against concrete, familiar echo of a million repetitions orchestrate deafening chorus before the wan pall. Grunts and sequence of engines, synonymous, replacing the ornis day shift._

_Where has their song gone along with the once mirthful murmurs of wake?_

**Für wen sind die blumen und wofür?**

_Same position. Same sullen sough. Same pit festering deep within the stomach basin as I rise yet again from unvollständig slumber. _

__  
  
Diurnal disorder? Queasy lumps, settling mid throat, raveling amid a mesh of vocal cords. Hallways: listless as ever, seemingly unending, tiled flooring morphing to bogged strait, melding with each leaden step, burrowed.

_Death is my nightmare; my dream. _

__   
**  
Not I who speaks.**

_At times, it betrays into reality’s aperture, relayed by inspired first breath of day. Upon brevity of that breath, I ponder, knowing that it can never be savored when innumerable inhalations respire in its place. _

_  
Thus, the concept of prodigy is deemed bootless._

_Existence, ceased, demands a certain brand of subjection; a shameless exposure of cold feet. Debris captures and settles betwixt the webbed skin of toes’ crevice, wound around the chafed heel. Wafty zest of contraband stipulates merciless succession of second; lattice of tea leaves steeping six minute duration._

_Three tablespoons of sugar; one-thirds teaspoon of honey; final brew, sickly bittersweet, subtle sediment of vanilla extract from riddled seed of pungent reek._

_On the paths of ‘God’ and ‘purpose’, I’ve lingered, as well as any other, unnamed. _

__  
  
I encounter a woman, not quite human, not quite otherwise: anthropomorphic, yet a silhouette not quite adept at assimilating.

_**‘Dead End’** was her name.”_

* * *


End file.
